Being an admirer of both Owen Gingerich and Phillip Johnson,
I was frustrated to read Gingerich's closing

So, what does Johnson want us to do about all
this? Abandon teaching evolution in schools? Teach it as a scientific myth? Give
creationists equal time? He call the writers of the ASA Teaching Science in a
Climate of Controversy "naive," but he seems to offer no obvious
prescription. If he understood better how science functions, perhaps he could
have proffered some advice, for he is obviously a thoughtful and intelligent
author. As it is, he has written a fun, provocative, but ultimately very
frustrating book.

It was disconcerting to find two "should be" allies
in the creation/evolution pseudo-controversy apparently so far apart in their
understanding of basic issues. In this Communication I argue that Gingerich and
Johnson are closer to common understanding than the Gingerich review would
indicate, and conclude by suggesting that they would both agree with ASA's
resolution calling for teaching evolution as science.

I will address the issues raised by Gingerich in reverse
order, first commenting on "how science functions," then dealing with
Johnson's perception that the ASA writers of Teaching Sciences in a Climate
of Controversy were "naive," and finally suggesting a solution to
the practical problem of teaching evolution in the public schools.

An anomaly in science is an observed fact that is
difficult to explain in terms of the existing conceptual framework. Anomalies
often point to the inadequacy of the current theory and herald a new one. It is
argued here that certain scientific anomalies are recognized as anomalies only
after they are given compelling explanations within a new conceptual framework.
Before this recognition, the peculiar facts are taken as given or are ignored in
the old framework. Such a "retrorecognition" phenomenon reveals not
only a significant feature of the process of scientific discovery but also an
important aspect of human psychology.

In essence, the Gingerich/Lightman "retrorecognition"
phenomenon observes that the majority of the scientific community is blind to
anomalies in a reigning paradigm until "after they are given compelling
explanations within a new conceptual framework." Anomalies are deviations
from the expected or predicted natural order. They may be unquestioned, taken as
givens, or "not widely regarded as important or legitimized until a good
explanation is at hand in a new paradigm."

Gingerich and Lightman present five examples of the
retrorecognition of anomalies following major paradigm shifts. As a geologist,
my interest focused on the example titled "the continental-fit
problem." Alfred Wegner, a German meteorologist, presented his case for
continental drift in the early 1900s to explain the jigsaw puzzle fit of the
continents. He marshaled additional supporting evidence (well recognized today)
to prove that the continents were once together. Why it took over 50 years for
the geosynclinal paradigm (which held to a largely horizontally static model) to
be replaced by plate tectonics (which involves horizontal movement on a
planetary scale) can be largely explained by the retrorecognition phenomenon.
Geologists, schooled in geosynclinal theory, were incapable of recognizing
anomalies, especially those that contradicted their reigning paradigm.

It should be noted the now largely forgotten geosynclinal
theory was supposed to explain and provide a mechanism for the origin of major
mountain systems. As recently as 1960, geologists thought that "just as the
doctrine of evolution is universally accepted among biologists, so also the
geosynclinal origin of the major mountain systems is an established principle in
geology."1 By the late 1960s it was obvious
to most geologists that geosynclinal theory never had provided an
explanation or established a mechanism for the origin of mountain systems.

Johnson's major point in Darwin on Trial, and in
subsequent lectures and publications, is that Darwinists are so mesmerized by
their paradigm that they cannot see anomalies or patterns of evidence at
variance with their theory. For example, the fact that the Cambrian explosion of
animal phyla and other macro-patterns in the fossil record contradict the
predictions of the Darwinian mechanisms is unseen, ignored, or regarded as
"details" to be squeezed into the existing framework. The 1990
California Science Framework bypasses these anomaly problems by limiting the
format in which data can be presented to the Darwinian model: "The
evolution of life should be presented to students not as a disconnected series
but as a pattern of changing diversity united by evolutionary
relationships...."2 The message here clearly
is that teachers should not present data independently of Darwinist
interpretations.

Heeding this advice, in April 1990 the California Academy of
Sciences opened a major exhibit at its Golden Gate Park Museum in San Francisco,
entitled "Life Through Time: The Evidence for Evolution." While
visiting the exhibit, I found that the most interesting display was one that
showed fossils linked together in a way that was intended to show their
evolutionary relationships. This display is diagrammed in Figure A (below left)
with my empirical plot of the museum's data (copied from the fossil index on the
adjoining wall) shown for contrast in Figure B (below
right).3

There are several problems with this display, but three are
particularly serious. First, in order to display the fossils in a way that is
consistent with the Framework's recommendations, the creators took substantial
liberties with the facts--by placing fossil specimens in the
wrong geological strata. I have added the dates (in mya, or million
years ago) for the oldest specimens to the diagrams to highlight the
inaccurate placement of the fossils by the museum. The fact that the fossils are
placed in the wrong strata in order to force them to fit the Darwinian paradigm
is an apt illustration of the power of the Darwinian conceptual framework to
inhibit scientific objectivity.

The second serious problem is the placement of magnifying
glasses at every branch-point in the diagram. In all the other fossil displays
in the exhibit, magnifying glasses were placed over minuscule fossils to help
the museum-goers see them more easily. In this display, however, there are no
fossils under any of the magnifying glasses. While this involves no misstatement
of facts, it is still deceptive--leading the viewer to
imagine that there are minute fossils at the branch-points, when there are none.
Absence of evidence for evolution is artfully converted into evidence.

The lines connecting the taxa into the classic Darwinian
evolutionary tree is the third and most serious problem with the museum display.
The obvious objection to these connecting lines is that the title of the exhibit
is "Life Through Time: Evidence for Evolution." Note that the
connecting (ancestral?) lines and empty magnifying glasses at the points of
hypothetical common ancestry are not evidence but inference.

This illustration of how museum curators have transformed
inference into evidence and falsified the placement of fossils was presented by
plenary speaker Phillip Johnson at the annual meeting of the Southwestern
Anthropological Association (SWAA) in April 1992.4 To my amazement,
there was no reaction or comment from the audience. To me, the total
blindness (or indifference) of the anthropologists may be explained by the
Gingerich/Lightman retrorecognition phenomena. No matter how obvious distortions
of evidence may appear, they are invisible or "ignored" by those
steeped in the existing paradigm.

In any event, it appears to me that Johnson and Gingerich
have the same understanding of how science works. They both know that science
does not always work in the objective, open to skeptical criticism manner that
we glorify in textbooks. It often works, as Gingerich has so aptly illustrated
with his retrorecognition examples, in a way that can blind scientists to
serious anomalies and evidentiary problems in entrenched paradigms. Johnson's
skeptical approach may open enough eyes to bring the actuality of how science
works closer to our ideal.

The Naivete of the ASA Writers

Let me assure the readers of this Journal that Johnson's
comments on the "naivete" of the writers of the ASA booklet Teaching
Science in a Climate of Controversy were
accurate.5 I was one of those writers. While we
were correct in assuming that science teachers would welcome our contribution,
we were naive to expect the same from the educational establishment. Teaching
Science was (and still is) branded as "thinly disguised creation
science" not to be used in the science classroom by the Manager of the
California Math/Science/Environmental unit. Further, the California Science
Teachers' Journal refused to publish our corrective response to a diatribe
by William Benetta in its Spring 1987 issue.6

Gingerich, like Johnson, does not share our naivete. In fact,
Gingerich prophetically states that "Johnson's brilliantly argued critique
of Darwinian evolution is guaranteed to arouse exasperated irritation from those
who accept evolution as an article of faith." Stephen J. Gould's highly
critical four page book review on Johnson's Darwin on Trial in the July
1992 issue of Scientific American is an accurate fulfillment of that
prophecy. Being more cynical and less naive than in the past, the ASA authors
were not surprised that Scientific American refused to publish Johnson's
response to Gould's attack. (Copies of Johnson's response are available from
this author.)

Teaching Evolution in the Schools

Neither Johnson nor Gingerich want us to "abandon
teaching evolution in schools, teach it as a scientific myth or give
creationists equal time." To the best of my knowledge, they both affirm the
solution outlined in the December 7, 1991 ASA's Executive Council's resolution
"A Voice For Evolution As Science," (see next page). In
addition to carefully defining and consistently using the terms evolution
and the theory of evolution, this resolution urges "(1) forceful
presentation of well-established scientific data and conclusions; (2) clear
distinction between evidence and inference; and (3) candid discussion of
unsolved problems and open questions."

Let us not continue to be naive and expect that this ASA
proposal is going to be implemented by the educational establishment. To date,
our proposal has met with deflection, derision and
hostility.7 For those who desire to understand
this hostility and the Darwinist control of education in the United States, I
suggest reading Darwin On Trial.

3For further
information on The California Academy of Science Museum exhibit, see Hartwig, M.
and Nelson, P.A. (1992). Invitation to Conflict: A Retrospective Look At the
California Science Framework. (Access Research Network, P. O. Box 38069,
Colorado Springs, CO 80937-8069) pages vi-x. As of August 1992, the museum
display has not been corrected.

4Phillip E. Johnson's
plenary paper entitled, "Darwinism's Rules of Reasoning" was
distributed to the 100+ attendees at the SWAA Berkeley meeting and is available
from this author. The two physical anthropologists responding to Johnson ignored
moderator Robert Anderson's admonitions and "squandered much of their
allotted time on ad hominem arguments" (see Robert Anderson,
"Evolution Versus Creation and the Ad Hominem Argument,"
Southwestern Anthropological Association Newsletter v. 33, no. 1, June 1991).

6
Copies of the
relevant correspondence and articles can be obtained by contacting this author.

7
The only response to
the news coverage on ASA's resolution in Science, vol. 255, page 282, was
by National Center for Science Education Director Eugenie Scott, which deflected
the issue with the usual smoke screen (and I paraphrase) "teachers are
afraid to teach evolution." Thomas H. Jukes referred to a similar proposal
by this author to define terms and use them with consistency as "a venomous
attack on scientists who have been fighting creationism" (The Scientist,
Letters, April 29, 1991).